Government Debt-to-GDP Ratio

The government debt-to-GDP ratio measures a country's total public debt as a percentage of its gross domestic product, providing a standard way to compare government indebtedness across countries and over time relative to the size of the economy available to service and eventually repay that debt. Compiled by national treasuries and finance ministries and tracked comparatively by international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the OECD, the ratio became a particularly prominent policy benchmark after the 1992 Maastricht Treaty set a 60 percent reference value for European Union member states, and it remains a central, if contested, gauge economists and credit rating agencies use to assess fiscal sustainability.